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Plantin®

Christopher Plantin should be remembered and honored, but not for designing Plantin. This important printer was instrumental in helping to create the rich typographical tradition we enjoy today. He was largely responsible for making type and typography The Netherlands the model of 16th century printing. Plantin, however, did not design or use the types named after him.

Christopher Plantin should be remembered and honored, but not for designing Plantin. This important printer was instrumental in helping to create the rich typographical tradition we enjoy today. He was largely responsible for making type and typography The Netherlands the model of 16th century printing. Plantin, however, did not design or use the types named after him.

If not Plantin, then who? Most reference books credit F. H. Pierpont as the designer responsible for the modern revival of the typestyle we now call Plantin. Actually, Pierpont did not draw the face either. Pierpont was not even a type designer; he served as production manager of a large British printing and publishing house in the early 1900s. Although Pierpont did not design Plantin, it was his passion and guidance that made the typeface happen.

Pierpont had long thought that his publishing house needed a typeface that was distinctive, legible, and that would print well on both coated and coarse papers. No existing font seemed to meet his requirements. While on a business trip to Antwerp, Pierpont visited the Plantin Moretus Museum. There he saw the exquisite collection of 16th century punches and matrices use by the printer, along with examples and documentation of the various stages of early type manufacture.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of the museum’s director, Pierpont left with a wealth of knowledge, hundreds of photographs and stacks of antique typeset specimens – including a few examples of Robert Granjon’s work that were produced by the Plantin Press but never used by its founder. These were to become the premise for Pierpont’s design.

Pierpont took his portfolio of type designs to the Monotype works, and under his direction, an adaptation was drawn and cut. In adapting the antique types for contemporary needs, Pierpont and the Monotype craftsmen mixed a love and understanding of 16th century type with a healthy dose of poetic license. The classic Old Style text design was preserved in the basic structure, but newfound strength and body were added to this delicate frame. The combination was a notable success. Shortly after its release, a number of typographically influential presses adopted Monotype Plantin and, as a result, it became the typeface of choice for virtually all kinds of printing.

Today, the Plantin family includes Light, Regular, Semi Bold and Bold weights. Plantin Headline was especially drawn for display setting, and a full suite of small caps, ligatures and old style figures have been drawn for the text designs.

Licenses for desktop fonts

A typical desktop font EULA will allow you to install the font on your computer for use with authoring tools including word processors, design tools and other applications that permit font selection. Fonts can also be used for creation of print documents, static images (JPEG, TIFF, PNG) and logos. The cost of a desktop font license is determined by the number of workstations on which the font is to be used.

Licenses for Fonts.com Web Fonts subscriptions

The Fonts.com Web Fonts license provides access to a selection of fonts for use on websites for use with CSS@font-face. Font delivery from our global network is available through all subscriptions – even our free plan. Some plans include the option to self-host, access to desktop fonts, and use of our FontExplorer X font manager and Typecast design application. The price of a plan is determined by its pageview allowance and other features included.

Licenses for mobile apps

A mobile app license permits the embedding of a font into the iOS, Android or Windows Phone mobile platforms for a single title and a set number of app installations. You can view and modify the installation limit from the cart. App installations can be spread out across the platforms your app is available for. A new license is not required to cover updates to an app, however installations of newer versions of your app do count toward your installation limit.

Licenses for electronic publications (eBooks)

An electronic publication license can be used for the embedding of fonts into electronic documents including e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers. A license covers only a single title but is valid for the full operating life of that title. Every issue of an e-magazine, e-newspaper or other form of e-periodical is considered a separate, new publication. Format variations do not count as separate publications. If a publication is updated and distributed to existing users, a new license is not required. However, updated versions issued to new customers are defined as new publications and require a separate license.

Server licenses

Server licenses authorize the installation of a font on a server that is accessed by remote users or website visitors. These licenses are commonly used by Web-based businesses providing goods that are personalized by its users such as business cards, images with captions and personalized merchandise. Users are not allowed to download the font file and the font may not be used outside the server environment. The font may not be employed for a software as a service (SaaS) application in which the service is the actual product and not the means of providing the product.
Server licenses cover a set number of CPU cores on production servers (development servers are not counted) on which the font is installed. The license is valid for 1 year.